The situation
Every product idea arrived in a different shape
An APAC corporate-gifting and branded-merchandise company serves hundreds of brands, from global FMCG names to enterprise marketers, through a global sourcing and fulfilment supply chain. Its work spans the full pipeline: take a customer's idea for a branded product, turn it into a real spec, source it, price it, and deliver it.
The catch was how those ideas arrived. A client might send a screenshot from a competitor's site, a logo file, a photo of a tote bag, and one line of text across email, Microsoft Teams, and Slack. Sales then had to interpret the product type, colour, material, logo placement, print area, quantity, and lead time before sourcing could act. Every inquiry began as manual translation, and Zoho CRM was updated by hand, if at all.
The Kuse team worked with sales and sourcing leaders to map how image-led requests should be interpreted, what a complete brief must contain, and where approvals belong. Together they connected email, Zoho CRM, Microsoft Teams, Slack, and sourcing channels into a workflow built around visual understanding rather than text automation alone.
Impact TL;DR
- Reads customer images, logos, screenshots, and attachments, not just text.
- Converts multi-channel requests into a standardized, costing-ready procurement brief with missing fields flagged.
- Generates supplier and product shortlists from a reference image or link.
- Keeps Zoho CRM current automatically, so pipeline reflects reality.
- Turns a task that depended on a senior person's eye into a repeatable team workflow.
“A client sends one screenshot, and ten minutes later we have a proper sourcing brief. That used to take an afternoon of back-and-forth.
Sourcing Lead, Corporate Gifting Company
01
Use case
Reading the request: image and logo to procurement brief
The problem: Customer requests are image-heavy and unstructured. A junior salesperson cannot always tell the material or print method from a photo, and details such as dimensions, quantity, packaging, and customization slip through. Sourcing ends up asking the same questions back and forth, and response time balloons.
How the collaboration worked: The Kuse team defined the intake schema with the sourcing team and delivered a workflow that reads customer screenshots, logo references, and chat instructions to extract product type, colour, material, logo placement, print area, quantity, lead time, constraints, and next steps into a sourcing-ready brief. Missing details are surfaced as open fields for the salesperson to confirm.
“We can start from the same screenshot the customer sends and get a brief that sourcing can act on immediately.
Sourcing Lead, Corporate Gifting Company
02
Use case
Sourcing on autopilot: reference image to supplier shortlist
The problem: Finding the right product and supplier meant an experienced buyer hopping between marketplaces, social platforms, and supplier sites, translating a picture into search terms in their head. That knowledge lived in a few people, and the search could not keep pace with sales.
How the collaboration worked: Together, the Kuse and sourcing teams documented how experienced buyers translate a reference image into search terms and supplier criteria such as price range, materials, brand fit, delivery constraints, and customer requirements. The delivered workflow assembles candidate products and suppliers with a match rationale and a list of details still to confirm before the team makes the final decision.
“It shortlists suppliers while I'm still reading the email. Sourcing finally keeps up with sales.
Sourcing Lead, Corporate Gifting Company
03
Use case
Keeping the CRM and the customer in sync
The problem: A single project's context was scattered across email, Teams, and Slack, while Zoho held only whatever someone remembered to type in. Pipeline data was incomplete, follow-ups slipped, and anyone new to a project had to dig through chat history to catch up.
How the collaboration worked: The Kuse team linked incoming messages to the company's Zoho structure and approval rules. The workflow keeps the request, supplier options, customer feedback, and next action current by preparing the client, project, stage, follow-up tasks, and customer reply for salesperson review before anything is written back.
“Our CRM is finally accurate, because keeping it accurate isn't a separate job anymore.
Sourcing Lead, Corporate Gifting Company
What changed after the engagement
Visual requests became a repeatable operating workflow
- The picture is the input.The delivered workflow accepts screenshots, product photos, and logos in the formats clients actually send.
- Every inquiry becomes structured.Messy asks turn into costing-ready briefs with the gaps flagged.
- Sourcing knowledge is shared, not siloed.The search process is repeatable, not stuck in one buyer's experience.
- Zoho reflects reality.Client, opportunity, and next step stay current without manual entry.
- Follow-up is a workflow, not a memory.Nothing depends on someone remembering to circle back.
About the customer
An APAC corporate-gifting and merchandise company
An APAC corporate-gifting and point-of-sale merchandise company serving hundreds of global brands, with in-house design and a global sourcing and fulfilment supply chain. The customer has been anonymized at their request.
multi-image visual understandingemail + Teams + Slack ingestZoho CRM read + writeweb sourcingapproval-gated writes and repliesmulti-agent workflow